When a telephone subscriber who possesses a prior art automatic telephone responder, i.e., answering machine, is absent from the responder at the time a call is coupled to the pager from another subscriber, the responder transmits an audio message indicating the absence of the called subscriber and stores the caller's message on a recording device. This sort of ordinary automatic responder regenerates the caller message stored on a built-in storing device when the called subscriber returns to his home and operates the responder or regenerates and transmits to the called subscriber through a public phone network when the called subscriber requests regeneration of the message through the public phone network. Despite these conveniences, this type of prior art automatic responder possesses no means of relaying received message for the absent subscriber. Therefore the prior art responders frequently require the absent subscriber to call or operate the responder to see if he has had a call in his absence, and, in a worst case scenario, is unable to relay a message at the right time.
In contrast, a pager receiver can emit a calling signal for the absentee and indicate the caller's identification code (e.g. his phone number) in response to reception of a radio frequency signal including the pager receiver assigned address from a local paging station. This type of pager receiver is usually favored by people whose whereabouts cannot be easily determined and a caller should in this case know the pager subscription numbers of the called person. Most users of pager receivers have pager subscription numbers and ordinary telephone numbers; however, when a caller calls a subscriber with his ordinary telephone number, usually there is no way for a subscriber to identify the caller at the right time.